Chin (Daniel Dae Kim) is kidnapped in the middle of the night and dropped in the middle of Halawa Prison dressed as an inmate, in the post-AFC Championship broadcast Sunday. / Norman Shapiro, CBS

by Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

by Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

The AFC Championship game on CBS dominated Sunday's primetime ratings, averaging 47.7 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen numbers.

Fox's NFC Championship game, which preceded it, averaged 42 million viewers. The two games are the two most-watched programs since last year's Super Bowl.

Despite the AFC game's strong showing Sunday, it trails the last two prime-time conference championship in viewers. An NFC overtime nail-biter in 2012 and the 2011 AFC title contest averaged 57.6 million and 54.9 million viewers, respectively.

A special broadcast of Hawaii Five-0 after the CBS game drew 12.9 million viewers, up from the 9.6 million who tuned into Monday's episode in the show's regular time slot.

ABC was the only broadcast network to run new episodes against football. Once Upon a Time averaged 7.7 million viewers and Revenge averaged 5.7 million viewers, dropping 6% and 8%, respectively, from their last original broadcasts a week earlier.